


Seven Seas Of Rhye

by orphan_account



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, It’s kind of implied that Crowley is asexual, Kidnapping, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Protective Crowley, Rebellion, Worried Crowley (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2020-06-02 06:54:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 17,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19436215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: As has been previously demonstrated, the universe isn’t completely evil at all times. It has been gracious enough to gift them several nights of peace, happy times and the smell of tea and pine needles and old books.This is the last night that the grace is being extended - for tonight, the universe grasps its great fingers against its chess board, the same fingers that have been collecting dust out of boredom for at least a few days now. As they begin their game again, they move a few things to the left.(A sequel.)(DISCONTINUED.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ahh!! I’m finally posting this!! I’ve been working on it for a while now, so I’ve got a few chapters already written. 
> 
> If you’re coming from the other fics in my series - welcome back! I hope this fic is as enjoyable as the last!
> 
> If you’re coming from scrolling through tags - this story has some things that Good Omens has not developed, so I would recommend you read the first story in this series to find out what happened there!
> 
> Either way, I hope that it’s an enjoyable story to read!

There’s a careful, fragile relationship beginning its new life, within Crowley and Aziraphale. It’s been a while since the two failed apocalypses, yet they’ve barely scratched the surface of who they are - who they can be, together. 

Never have they shown their love so vividly as now, when they truly allowed themselves to express it. It only took two apocowasn’ts to get to this point.

And 6000 years of pining.

But that is quite besides the point. They’re together now - in fact, at this exact moment, Crowley has his head in the crook of Aziraphale’s neck, the angel reading a book as his love snores on. 

Despite the darkness seeping into the darkened corners of his flat above the shop, the yellow lamps illuminate it just enough that the whole room gives off a polite aura of warmth. The book held in his perfectly manicured hands holds much of the same aura, with its cracked pages, its splitting spine. It’s some copy of Hamlet with all the H’s being R’s, a very odd publishing mistake that he doesn’t care enough about to actually be reading. 

A particularly loud snore from Crowley interrupts his thoughts and he looks down. Crowley sleeps on, eyelashes resting gently against his cheek, his long curls of ruby red rising and falling against Aziraphales chest. His legs are splayed openly against the creamy sheets, contrasting with his ridiculously luxurious silk black shorts.

He drools - but Aziraphale would never tell him that. 

Aziraphale turns his head to the side and leans as far over as possible, careful not to disrupt Crowley’s sleep, then plops his book onto the nightstand table next to the bed. The light smack of book against wood makes Aziraphale wince, and the piercing yellow snake eyes that meet his when he turns back around confirm his suspicions. 

“Dear? Did I wake you?”

“Hrm? Oh, yes.” He yawns. “‘S ok.” 

Aziraphale chuckles. “Do you need anything?”

There’s a pause, and Crowley lifts his head, yawning again and stretching out his bony arms, the sleeves of Aziraphale’s sweater sliding down them. “Nope,” he replies, popping the P. “Jus’ more sleep. And you, Angel.”

A warm and dopey smile floats across Crowley’s face as he flops down next to Aziraphale, finally resting his head on the pillows. His eyes brows wiggle up and down suggestively, but Aziraphale only rolls his eyes and lets the lamps flicker out. 

They sleep easily that night. Not a nightmare, not a rude awakening, not a car backfiring or anything to disrupt them. Even Aziraphale, normally one to detest sleep, finds himself peaceful within the night. 

—-

Morning comes at just the right time, and so does awakening.

The first thing Crowley realizes is that the sun from the windows is warm. 

Well - that’s like saying fire will burn you, or water will make you wet. It’s quite obvious. But obvious statements are besides the point. 

Maybe the sun from  _ your _ window isn’t a gentle warm one - in fact, maybe you find yourself in some off-shore and dreary place where the sun has decided its talents were better suited for, of all places, London. 

Still, try to imagine that warmth creeping up your sides - maybe turn on a lamp and let the brightness settle upon you. 

The sun beats down against Crowley’s exposed back, his shirt having ridden up in the night. He turns over to avoid it with a grumble, then opens his eyes when he hears a chuckle from across the room.

Aziraphale sits in an armchair, still in pajamas, sipping a glass of what Crowley assumes is tea from the earthy smell wafting about the room. Chamomile.

“Too hot for the snake?”

“Ziraaaa,” he whines, petulant and childish. “You bastard; stop laughing at my pain.”

“Now now, if anyone’s a bastard it would be you, Crowley,” chastises the angel who is about as much a bastard as Crowley is. “But anyways;”

“Would you like some tea? I’ve still got some warmed up in the kettle.”

Crowley sits up and yanks his shirt back down, the fabric getting caught on his sleep drenched and sluggish fingers till he wrenches them away. “Sure. Sure - I’ll go for some tea.”

Through a quick miracle, he feels a teacup of tea being pressed into his hands. It's the one with the angel wings - and Crowley snorts at its reappearance. He drinks gratefully.

“How’d you sleep, angel?”

“Oh!” Aziraphale’s face lights up - and Crowley’s heart feels weak. That smile - though Crowley couldn’t admit it, is ineffable.

“Quite well! I don’t know how you do it like you do - so often and all, but I did enjoy this little experiment.” A thoughtful look passes his face. “I don’t suppose I was meant to dream, was I?”

“Ngh.” Crowley sips more of his tea. 

When the tea is finished he slips out of bed, so snakelike his limbs forget they exist and he does a rather awkward tumble onto the floor - glaring at Aziraphale as the angel laughs. 

“Come off it,” he grumbles as he stands.

“I am sorry Crowley, that was just-“ he snorts. “Just… I don’t know. Are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m bloody fine angel,” he snaps, though there’s nothing more besides a playful and annoyed edge to it as he swaggers to the dresser. 

He spends quite a bit of time at Aziraphale’s house now, and random bits of his clothing and taste have accentuated the place. As if to prove this, a plant shivers violently from atop the dresser as Crowley grabs an outfit from within. 

Aziraphale is already dressed, wearing what he always wears, old and outdated clothing that still manages to look gorgeous on him. 100 years late seems to be his permanent style, yet he  _ certainly  _ uses that style to his advantage. 

Crowley yanks his new shirt on and snaps, the clothing he’s stripped of appearing in the basement downstairs. As he walks from the room he begins a rather complicated dance - walking and yanking skinny jeans on at the same time. He ignores the chuckling behind him and pulls shoes on as well, finally making it to the kitchen. 

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m famished.” Aziraphale opens a cupboard and grabs a tin of muffins wrapped in plastic wrap, the leftovers from yesterday. They warm with a quick miracle, then he grabs two plates and set them down. 

Crowley is already unwrapping the muffins when Aziraphale turns back around, and he drops them onto the plates held aloft then takes them, setting them against the table while humming some unfamiliar song.

(It’s Queen - Aziraphale knows it’s Queen, it’s obvious. He’s listened to _all_ their songs by now - but Crowley doesn’t know that.)

Aziraphale sits across from him, pulling pieces off his muffin and starting to eat as Crowley shoves half of the muffin into his mouth with a moan. “Oh, for someone’s sake Aziraphale, these are heav - devi -  _ deliciously  _ good.”

“That’s very kind of you, thank you.”

The K-word used to be a ridiculous evil that sometimes accompanied shouts and slamming of things - but that’s all dead and gone within the past. It’s hard to feel conflicted about words your side would hate when you don’t have one at all anymore. 

Apparently, he’s got ingrained evil and kindness within him - being demonic and angelic now. Just like a human, if humans had six wings and the power of a Seraphim. 

It was much of the same for Aziraphale - except for how he had the powers of an archangel and only two wings. Having the ability to sometimes bring about ridiculously frivolous miracles did come in handy, even if he was content to live close to as humans do.

It was also no secret that he would love to hear how Gabriel had reacted to hearing his powers had been transferred to the angel he despised most. 

The day progresses on in about the same fashion as the night had. Warm, quiet - with some ridiculous acts from both of them, and a few kisses freckles inbetween it all.

Aziraphale reads through one of the books from Adam he has yet to go through as Crowley watches him from afar, pretending to scroll through his phone. Though Adam’s approaching 13 now, they still keep in touch. He’s shaping up to be a rather human antichrist, which is all that anyone could have hoped for.

Occasional spikes of magic from Tadfield are frequent, but most of it is Adam doing tiny tasks, such as letting Dog out of the backyard or getting ice cream samples multiple times. 

When the sun finally falls away and night approaches, things stay “normal.”

It is just as soft as yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. Much of their lives had been mercifully soft recently, and it had them both wondering when things would start to crumble around them.

Not much happens nowadays - other than Aziraphale being forced to glower at a few customers till they leave and Crowley needing to shout at his plants. 

Sure - they’ve got bucketloads of repressed memories and trauma to dig through, but no one said it would be easy. 

They rest, and that rest is gentle only because the universe is kind enough to let it be. 

As has been previously demonstrated, the universe isn’t completely evil at all times. It has been gracious enough to gift them several nights of peace, happy times and the smell of tea and pine needles and old books. 

This is the last night that the grace is being extended - for tonight, the universe grasps its great fingers against its chess board, the same fingers that have been collecting dust out of boredom for at least a few  _ days _ now. As they begin their game again, they move a few things to the left. 

And so, as soon as those players are shifted, things on Heaven and Hell begin to shift - and Earth along with it. 

Tonight was the last night of peaceful rest, for in the morning, Aziraphale is nowhere to be found. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s 12:04 on the dot because I really wanted to get this chapter out but had to wait

He Crowley doesn’t mind it when Aziraphale leaves. The angel is his own man-shaped person, and even if Crowley likes to know how he’s doing, it’s ok if there’s a bit of radio silence for a while.

But now isn’t “ok.”

Something doesn’t sit well - there’s an aura of unease settled around the once so cozy house, and Aziraphale hasn’t answered any of his calls. He stopped calling after an hour and two more dials - but only when he found the angels phone, muted and sitting in his dresser drawer.

The ticking of a watch abandoned on the night table does nothing to quell Crowley’s anxiety - in fact, it helps it to grow, like kindle to a flame. More like gasoline, for as time ticks onwards Crowley becomes steadily more worried.

It’s been two hours.

He slides his jacket on in a hurry, not even bothering to throw on his tie untied. 

Mixed Seraph, and he can’t even find his boyfriend. 

The door locks behind him as he strolls out into the street, normal swagger replaced with hurried steps. His own aura draws far out into the world, and he feels around, prodding the area to see if there is even a faint hint of Aziraphale’s evening-warmth aura flitting about the streets. 

There isn’t. 

It’s even begun to fade from the bookshop and London itself, incredibly fast, as if he’d never been there at all. This isn’t normal - auras, whether angelic, demonic or human all remain long after someone has left the spot they had been in. Even if they become stale or mingle with other auras, they remain, coated under layers of other people. They’re quite easy to draw out with a proper bit of work, so isolating Azirpahales aura should be easy. 

The aura is fading faster than any Crowley has ever seen, so it’s much harder. 

He continues searching. Each of their past rendezvous spots are turned inside out, Shadwell is interrogated thoroughly, Tadfield and Adam’s home are searched, no matter how confused and annoyed the young boy’s parents were. Frankly, he couldn’t give less of a damn whether the Boys’s parents are peeved at him now - they allowed him to come in and search, so he’s doing just that.

His Bentley drives on an endless fuel source, and he doesn’t take a single pit-stop. Azirpahale would probably find him driving now extra atrocious - as would anyone, really. 150 miles per hour on busy streets is hardly polite.

When he jumps back into the car, leaving the confused Antichrist and his family behind, he starts heading to his final earthly destination - the airbase.

It’s completely empty other than angry people in camo outfits gesturing angrily at him with guns, like a bug whose leaves you’ve just yanked away. 

Crowley has searched  _ everywhere.  _ So, he searches some more.

The next place on his list is a tricky one to get to, and one he’s desperate to find that Azirpahale is  _ not  _ at. Still holding on to hope - he expects to wake from a nightmare any second now, or for his phone to buzz with a call from Aziraphale. Still, he’s not one to be delusional like that - life has a funny way of not doing anything he hopes for.

He hasn’t been to his next destination in more than 6000 years. Not since God had struck him out - volunteering him to make Original Sin’s creation more gentle. The only thing she had cared to spare were his wings. His beautiful, angelic wings had been burnt to a strange, shifting black, but at least he’d still had them.

Now, he’s grown two more pairs, and they all match moonlight with their silver sheen. 

His bridge to Heaven is the office building him and Aziraphale used to report to their respective leaders. The glass floors and staircases shine irritatingly bright against his sunglasses, even with the afternoon light being clouded over slightly. 

That doesn’t affect him - he just begins his trek up the stairs, disappearing into the glass reflections with a heavy glare and swagger along with the absence of a worry at what he’ll encounter inside, or what the angels will think of him.

He walks up to the gates of Heaven.

They’re gargantuan beasts of marble, towering above him and the guards that are regularly stationed there. Not a speck of dust or mold have begun a crawl upwards and against them - in fact, they shine with more godly light than some angels manage to. 

The whole area crawls with pain, misery and horror. The entrance borders the edge of heaven - where so many former angels were thrown from God's Grace, dragged there in chains or leaping from the sides like it was their salvation. He can almost hear the screams, of pain, of terror, of hatred. The chanting of fallen angels begging to be saved or begging for their pain to be ended then and there echo in his head, and he pictures his own falling spot with crystalline perfection.

Shaking himself from the memories, he walks forward, unsettled.

It seems that the guards are ten times more uneasy. His angelic aura mingles and blends in, but his massive demonic presence spreads within the gates, festering like a picked-at scab. 

“Back, foul beast,” says one of them, a lesser angel he hadn’t known before the fall. Their sword hangs limp at their side, and they don’t seem ready to try and fight him. 

“Na,” he dismisses, waving a hand managed to match his tone. “I’ve got business with the Archangels. Open up.”

The one on the other side raises their sword, and Crowley’s first and only though to that matter is: “Huh, not nearly as impressive as Aziraphale’s.” He says so out loud. 

The angels stare, then give each other a look that very obviously communicates their opinions of him. “Aziraphale?” Mutters the one with their weapon held down when they look back over, dropping their raised eyebrows and arrogant smirk. “Isn’t he that one with the Archangels power?”

“Yeah, he is you Satan blessed -“ he cuts off as the one without their weapon draws their sword and flares harder.

“Ok, fine! Not Satan blessed,” he hisses, waving his arms around. “Regular blessed or whatever! You’re both idiots.” He points a finger on each hand to them and glares, his forked tongue flicking out tauntingly. “You couldn’t kill me if you tried!” 

“Oh? You’re a low level demon, aren’t you?” The two smirk at him, perfect caricatures of the most annoying assholes Heaven has to give. Somehow they’ve managed to look exactly like Gabriel, and Crowley is getting tired of it.

So, his wings unfurl, cutting through the air and spreading an aura of Heavenly Grace and Demonic energy. The six of them whip out to their full length, a great and powerful wingspan that blows massive gusts of wind when they flow through the air, tok graceful and slow to be a flap. 

“Now,” he starts with a proud voice. “I’m not one for showing off, but nowadays I’d like to say I’m in God’s better graces, being, yknow, half angelic Seraphim?”

Their jaws drop to the floor, mirroring their swords, which clatter loudly when they finish their plummet. 

“Oh, come on, no need to be  _ scared _ .” 

Voice a half mutter, he walks forward, ignoring the two of them with their gaping mouths and eyes like Beelzebub’s flies. “Well, anyways!” He clears his throat and stands at the foot of the gate, yanking down on a large metal lever that was only just installed when he fell. “I’ll be going now!”

They nod behind him, ignored as Crowley begins his hurried walk through the streets. His wings curled out from view the moment he stepped through the gates, and it’s a testament to how worried he is that he doesn't want to flaunt his status as part angel in anyone’s face. 

He hopes that no one on the surface of Heaven, hell or earth make an attempt to stop him again. 

No one does. They only whisper of filthy demons and strange entities as he struts throughout the grounds of heaven and continues ignoring them all.

The last time he was here as himself, they still lived in homely little puffs of cloud and humble mud cottages - now they’re in towering skyscrapers with barely any warmth to it. The place looks like what hell should’ve looked like - cold, oppressive, over-professional.

It looks like something humans might’ve created. 

Maybe you’ve once seen a place like that - and it’s easy to imagine. Think of your office building where you slave away, or a business’s tower, or anything of the sort. You wouldn’t associate either with Heaven - but that’s what the crushing effect of having someone like  _ Gabriel  _ working behind the scenes looks like. 

The largest building is easily the most impressive - a mass of mirrored glass that swirls upwards, the structure twisting floatily. The two massive doors in the middle are bordered by bushes and flowers - a new addition since the last time he’d come here, for Aziraphale’s trial.

He mostly ignores the random shrubbery, other than a cursory glance as he tugs the doors open. Even if it seems that Heaven has begun trying to fix the eerie atmosphere of its quarters, they’re not exactly good at it. 

Plants do nothing when they look like  _ that,  _ and he almost stops to yell at them. 

He locates the stairs with barely a glance to the rest of Heavens sad attempts at redecorating. The front hall of the building is blessedly empty - the only other soul being an angel guarding Crowley’s goal. 

“I need to see the Archangels,” he demands to the angel, who has their eyes shut and arms crossed, barely awake. 

“No admission. Too late in the day, come back later.” 

“No, I’m getting up these Satan blessed stairs whether I’ve got to do it by force or not!”

His use of Satan seems to have touched something within the Angel, as their eyes snap open and a glare begins its reign on their face.

Satan has always been a touchy term within the circles of Heaven, along with Hell, Lucifer, Morningstar, flies, fallen, falling and strangely enough - uncooked pizza dough. That one is a new one, Aziraphale had told him about it. Something about microwaved hot-pockets snuggled in from earth - he’d been too tired to listen fully. 

“Are you a blasted  _ demon?”  _ they roar with a disgusted expression as they stand, hand falling against the sword sheath clipped to their suit.

With a whoosh of air the doors behind him fly open, a group of guards scrambling in, their heavenly swords raised. 

One of them, presumably their leader, steps forward. A nervous look sits in their eyes, but that may be their default expression. Their jaw is held gosh and their gaze doesn’t waver. “Put your hands up, foul beast!”

Fortunately, he’s only half a foul beast. 

He’s content to only stand there, boredly staring at the lot of them with sunglasses sliding down his nose.

“I said put your hands up!”

A sigh flies from his lips like confusion flies from their auras, and a single word flies out of his throat like a growl. 

“No.”

Wings of silver come exploding from his back for the second time that day, an expulsion of light following them. Shimmering strands of Void collide with pure Grace and swirl about, tumultuous within his aura.

They stand in shocked silence for a moment, a sickened look coming over the leader as his knee crashes to the ground in a bow. Each angel follows after him, stunned looks still transfixed on his wings. 

“No, no get the fuck up!” He throws his arms up as each of them cut their descent to the ground shirt, face warping into confusion. “For somebody's sake - you’re all insufferable idiots! Leave me the heaven alone!”

He leaves them all with a squeaking turn of his heel, wings tugged back out of sight, for rolling back into worry as his feet stomp up the flights. Doors upon doors pass, and flights seem to get taller and taller. 

Nothing is gained from the arduous trek till he makes it to the final step, twin glass doors standing in front of him. 

He takes a moment in front of the door, giving himself time to sigh, collect his thoughts as his head thinks against the wall. A single hand presses against the door to his left, and he screws his eyes shut.

It’s been 12 hours. 

The phone in his pocket is still silent.

Finally, he opens the door, pushing it forward and letting his expression grow back to a mask of anger. 

Inside, he finds Chamuel sitting in an out of place armchair, the tan fabric like something he might’ve found in Aziraphale’s bookshop. He sips a glass of tea and smiles warmly at Crowley. 

That smile slips away when he notices the venomous glare in Crowley eyes.

“Where in the bloody heaven or hell is Aziraphale?” He demands, coming to a screeching halt just in front of the lonely archangel, pushing his sunglasses back up and hiding the caramel eyes underneath, his last window to vulnerability.

“I - I - I haven’t seen him, a - are you alright Crowley?” 

The worry on his face looks fake to Crowley as the teacup in Chamuel’s hands goes clinking down against a table, the display only managing to help the anger within Crowley grow. 

“I know you angels don’t lie but you’ve got to know bloody _something_! Aziraphale’s gone and you buggers were the last ones to try to execute him formally as far as I know!” 

Chamuel shys away from the accusatory finger pointed an inch away from him, but his gaze doesn’t waver. 

At least Crowley hasn’t grabbed him by the collar and yanked him over - but that move was only reserved for Aziraphale while it was still being used. 

“Crowley, please, sit.” He throws an arm out to gesture at a freshly miracled armchair in front of him. “I’m more than willing to help you find Azirpahale, but nothings going to happen if you don’t calm down.” In his hands a second cup appears, and he smiles, simperingly polite. “Tea?”

It vanishes with a shake of Crowley’s head.

Chamuel isn’t an idiot - he's the archangel of relationships, and destroying something between Aziraphale and him by kidnapping Azirpahale wouldn’t make any sense.

Perhaps he’s been a little harsh - but he deserves to be when Aziraphale is at stake. 

He sighs and shakes his head, rubbing at his temple for a moment before he responds. “No. No. I just need to get going. I won't apologize for intruding, but thanks for not kidnapping him, you know.” 

Chamuel nods, then frowns at him. “Crowley, are you sure? I -“

“No.” He holds a hand out to silence the Archangel. “I’m leaving.”

And he does - with a flick of his wrist and a mournful sigh that’s nearly silent. Each footstep echoes around the almost-empty room, only stopping when he meets the door. 

For just a second, he takes another moment. A single moment, only enough to think and gather what other thoughts rattle around his mind.

That would turn out to be a mistake, but for a single second he nearly smiles - remembering the last night he’d had, peaceful, with Aziraphale.

The door handle is clutched in his hand when a thought pierces him, as sharp as feathers torn from blackened wings and bones snapped with barely any effort. He whips back around to Chamuel, face panicked in a way that he’s unable to hide. 

“Where’s Death?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Death, as you might remember, is the archangel Azrael. Chamuel is the Archangel of relationships.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not sure about this chapter, it isn’t my favorite. I hope it’s enjoyable anyways!

“Where’s Azrael?” he gasps again, hands retreating from the door handles. 

He turns, stumbling away from the doors and walking back to Chamuel. “Where is he?” he demands to the Archangel, whose face contorts to understanding. Crowley’s face is white as a sheet, and he grips into Chamuel’s shirt collar, yanking his face closer. 

“Where is death, Chamuel! Come on, just tell me for the love of -“ 

“Crowley - he’s - he’s not dead!” Chamuel’s warm brown hands grip into his shoulders, a steady rock that Crowley finds himself focusing on in the face of his own panic. “Calm down - you would’ve been able to sense it if he’d died!”

Crowley swallows, about to respond when Chamuel yanks his hands away and sneers angrily, his lips curling up and head tilting high proudly. “Or maybe you’re too much of a demon too feel that,” he says, the expression on his face alien against what is normally a honeyed smile and bright eyes. 

This isn’t like Chamuel - out of all the Archangels he’d always been the quietest one. Crowley never disliked him, even when he fell - Chamuel had looked distraught among the crowds when Crowley made his plummet. Tearing apart relationships, especially his own, had never been a move that Chamuel was prone to make. 

“Go check downstairs or something, you’ll probably have a better grasp on your sanity when closer to your  _ master _ !” 

Crowley almost flinches back at the harsh words - but Crowley is the type of person who is insulted so often that flinching is barely a word in his vocabulary. “Never took you as the type to be the asshole,” he snarls, readjusting his glasses and focusing on stopping the shaking of rage in his hands. “G’bye,  _ wankwings _ .”

It’s strange, going back to insulting the archangel. Sure, he’d occasionally call him wankwings in casual discussion, but they were  _ nice  _ wankwings. Now all that he feels from his own words is barely concealed hatred.

Deep down in the heart he calls a barren pit, Crowley knows something is wrong. There’s an exhaling of poison from the angels aura, as if something is tampering with how it appears and how Chamuel presents it.

He feels like a child, arguing like this, with foolish insults and over the top words, but here he is. None of the angels or demons really had complete childhoods, so their inner eight year old tends to pop out at inopportune times. 

Chamuel threw the first blow, so Crowley returns it. He has never been one to shy away from an argument with an asshole. 

Crowley’s about to turn and stalk away, when Chamuel’s face twists again - this time to a confused, surprised expression. “Crowley, I -“ 

“Just - Just stuff it, Chamuel. I’m going to find someone of actual use.” 

The squeak of his heels against the perfectly polished floors is about as satisfying as the guilty look on Chamuel’s face. That is to say - it’s not satisfying in the least. He yanks the doors open and stomps down the stairs without sparing another word.

When he meets the bottom, the guard at the door of the steps only barely manages to leap out of his way before Crowley can shove him. 

Crowley is, for the most part, a patient man shaped being. Being someone that was near-immortal and also had tremendous amounts of powers allowed him to wait for ridiculous amounts of things to happen in horribly slow amounts of time.

When it comes to Aziraphale - he’s been forced to be painfully slow. Not that it was really the Angels fault, as their respective head offices would’ve torn them apart had they seen a romance bloom between the two. But in that stretch of more than 6000 years of waiting, Crowley learned to be even more patient than how he had begun.

When him and Azirphale were finally able to get together, most of that patience snapped like a rubber band. 

The key word there is mostly - for if necessary, he would absolutely be willing to be patient again, for Aziraphale. But now, this situation doesn’t deserve an ounce of patience, even if it is for Aziraphale. 

Patience right now might mean finding Aziraphale, broken and covered in golden blood, hellfire or something worse taking his life for the rest of time. 

So, Crowley wastes no time being patient and slams his fist into a button.

The button sits next to an elevator, it’s metal sheen gleaming silver in the light, stands before him. It’s large doors are lined in swirling golden marks, but it’s beauty is an artificial one, covering up something far more sinister.

The pad next to the wall sits ominously blank - other than a single button, pointing down. Crowley has just pressed that button, and his patience for the slowly arriving carriage has just begun to crumble. 

—-

Azirpahale wouldn’t call himself a particularly unlucky or lucky angel. In his opinion, he’s got a bit of a happy medium going on - though after the universe’s last two bouts of nasty unlucky moments he thought he was doing better.

He couldn’t have been more wrong. How does he know that? 

Probably because he currently sits in a crooked wooden chair, arms and legs tied down with hellish ropes, his mouth gagged with fabric scratchy enough to be called hellish, no matter it’s origins. His eyes have faced a black sheet of fabric for several hours now, and suffice to say - “annoyed and confused” may as well be his new name.

Powers of an archangel or no, he’s in a bit of a spot here. 

At least he isn’t hurt. He’s surprisingly uninjured, other than his small amount of pride and the area’s where the hell ropes have rubbed burns into his flesh.

His aura can’t even sense where he is - something stronger than his powers has managed to suffocate it out, is all he can guess. There aren’t many things with a heavy enough grudge against him to kidnap him, and even less so that are more powerful than him. He can’t even think of any people off the top of his head, not even Beelzebub anymore. Apparently the hellish Lord Of Flies wasn’t actually too bad. 

(They’d gone out for drinks with Crowley a few weeks after the second apocowasn’t. Crowley had reported back that while their flies were a bit noisy, once you got past that they weren’t really evil  _ all  _ the time.)

As he thinks of Crowley, he wonders what he’s doing right. Hopefully, he’s not doing anything reckless, but knowing Crowley - he would probably do something reckless simply out of spite.

—-

Crowley is on his way to do something reckless. 

Well, at least it isn’t out of spite - but bursting through to the gates of Hell to search for his lost boyfriend angel might not be the  _ best  _ idea. Especially because half of the people there desperately want him dead.

The doors slide shut the moment he walks inside - nearly clipping his shoes. He sneers at the camera in the corner then goes to inspect the soles for scuffs, and a pleasant elevator music begins to play - slightly less grating than the original music heaven used to play. It’s almost peaceful.

Halfway down it shifts to the faint noises of assorted noises only to be described as  _ bad -  _ like someone eating with their mouth full or dripping spit out of their mouth and sucking it back inside. 

Hell has no taste.

The elevator comes to a jerking stop and Crowley steadies himself against nausea - which, he has been told, is a complimentary hint of what angels will find within Hell and therefore mandatory inside all elevators within. 

The stench of pure terror and burnt corpses is what he expects to hit his nose, but for some reason he can only smell the faint scent of bathroom disinfectant and rubbing alcohol. The bubbling aroma of horrid promises still lingers within the air, but it seems that someone, for some reason, decided to cover it up to the best of their abilities.

He frowns, and peels himself off the wall of the elevator when the sickness passes, walking out of the door and striding down the hall. What he expects to see when he finishes his walk down the hall is the execution room - with its throne and “jeering-specter” window specifically reinforced for maximum taunting ability. 

What he sees instead is described as following.

Where a clawed bathtub and depressingly small throne had once sat there is a soft, albeit old and ratty looking chair, and an equally ancient and moldy couch placed across from it. The concrete walls have a few soft tapestries dangled across the ceiling, and someone has nailed air fresheners all along the trimmings of the wall. They leak down, the smell becoming almost overwhelming as it’s fumes dribble to the floor and drift into his unsuspecting nose. 

The aura within the room is a mix of demonic and human both, with the faintest scent of angelic virtue clawing its way through a pit of hell. Even more surprising than anything else, the newer parts of the mingling aura - demonic and human alike - mostly seem  _ calm.  _

“Uhm, hello? Sir?” 

A demon walks up to him and waves at his face, then skittishly yanks his arms back as if afraid to touch the air. He’s surprisingly clean, as far as demons go, and Crowley side eyes him for a moment before stopping to ask a question, only for a second. 

“What the fuck did they do to this place?” Crowley says, enunciating the symbols with a stunned surprise.

The demon follows after him as he starts his swift pace again, choking down a sob of anguish and clawing at their face before they manage to spit out their sentence. “It - it’s the former trial room.”

“Yeah, well, I bloody know that,” he replies, rolling his eyes under his sunglasses. “Why isn’t it more hellish?”

“They… they made it  _ nice!”  _ Wails the demon, thick, black tears finally beginning a trickling path down their face. 

He's at a loss for words.  _ Nice?  _ Hell isn't good at making things nice - it’s not  _ meant to be - _ but already, the halls and room he's managed to pass by now look almost passable. He wonders what the main halls look like, and twists back around to ask: 

“Why?” 

“B- because Lucifer said he wants, erm…” they lean in close, their long black hair actually  _ clean  _ as it scrapes against Crowley’s jacket. “ _ Reform _ ,” they whisper, as if the mere mention of it will have someone smiting him. For all Crowley knows, it might be the demon’s doom to say it, but he can’t bring himself to care for the sniveling, selfish idiot before him. 

Demons never take well to reform - especially not the type that made things nicer. They usually liked the type of reform that included genocide, or shutting down the arts department.

Crowley shoots him an unimpressed look and waves his arms about to gesture around the room. “So, what’re they doing with souls down here? No more… hellish torture?”

“Uh, no, not hellish anymore. More like torture for us demons really, they’ve got some of us on  _ therapy  _ duty. We’ve got to coach the souls through their penance, then they get a chance at community service and such and they might be able to go to Heaven. Only the really bad ones aren’t allowed to go up.”

“You’re  _ shitting me.” _

“No, I’m afraid not. They’ve already sent a few up there, and some of the demons actually  _ enjoy it!”  _ Inky tears continue raining down as they warble on. “It’s - it’s just  _ horrible!” _

“I don’t really give a damn about what you think right now,” he grumbles, hand meeting the handle of the door he knows leads to the main halls. “You also seem like a bit of an idiot, so g’bye.”

He pushes the demon away and they slide down the wall, sobbing and lamenting the lost “glory years” of hell, jacket pooling at their feet along with their tears. 

Who actually enjoyed hells atmosphere? Even Hastur, a Duke Of Hell, despised the leaky ceilings if not everything else. Crowley could barely stand to be in the place at all, let alone work there full time at some hellish office job - or - someone forbid - a torture job. He’d rather be permanently discorporated than have to torture some miserable soul for all of eternity.

He hadn’t even realized that some demons liked the constant stench of pain, misery and feces, or the molding walls.

He hopes that soon a few more demons with IQ’s above -5 will come into the light. Crowley had even been tentative friends with a few demons like that. Those barely-friendships hadn’t lasted though, for they’d all taken untimely baths in holy water after being found guilty of treason. All they’d done was a few good deeds without being careful, and Hell had found out. 

Maybe with this new reform, more demons will be able to be free as they had wanted. 

Right now, though, Crowley doesn’t bother with searching for more demons like that. He continues his walk through the sprawling halls, deep within the gaping maw that is hell. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey just a warning! This chapter hints at and talks about some sexual themes, but it isn’t very graphic. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Each of the passing hallways are more curious than the last. Air fresheners have been smashed randomly into the walls, leaks in the ceiling have been patched messily with duct tape. If walls could y’all, they might muse about how the place seemed to be cleaning up, but by bit.

Doors that once hid torture rooms and prison cells are now opened to reveal baby-blue carpets and sagging armchairs. In a few with doors shut he can hear faint conversation, not the wailing and sobbing he was so accustomed to. The place feels undeniably alien, and Crowley can’t help but feel cheated that it’s only begun to change now. 

The tangle of halls form in his mind and he stumbles through them quickly, maneuvering throughout the maze of halls one by one till he finally finds the door he’s been searching for.

Creatures of hell are rubbish at finding auras. You’d think that out of anyone, people dependent on how human-people felt, would be able to read how they felt. But now, those powers had ultimately managed to be burnt away.

Either way, the aura oozing from the door before him could be read by even the densest of humans. 

The dark oak door is different from the rest. It’s more of a soft color, with scratches and stains of blood all devoid from the surface. A plaque sits on the door, nestled a few inches below Crowley’s eyeliner, but he knows what it says. 

“Beelzebub, Lord Of Flies, Prince Of Hell,” it reads. The knocker sitting just underneath it is shaped in the shape of one of nature’s greater disappointments - a fly. He grabs its face and slams it down against the door, entering without waiting for a response.

Their office is larger than the other demons offices, but a prison cell is a prison cell no matter the size, as Aziraphale had once said.

There’s a desk pushed into the middle of the back wall, a lone book and some cups of liquid testing on its surface. 

There’s an armchair chair sitting in the corner, one that anyone might recognize. 

It’s the chair that sits in your room for all of time, collecting laundry and detritus till it - along with the rest of your decreasing sanity, collapses. Most of these chairs have normal human things like their jackets or books, but the chair within Beelzebub’s office is covered in actual garbage, with flies buzzing around and diving into it.

The floor is a dark wood that matches the door, and the crack have been stained with demonic blood and other fluids that are best left undiscussed if one wants to keep the contents of their stomach in the right place. 

Beelzebub stands in the corner to the left of their desk, staring out a window that faces the fiery pits of hell with a blank expression unmistakable for boredom. They don’t seem to have heard Crowley, so he kicks a bottle on the floor and clears his throat. 

They whip around with a startled glare, and Crowley immediately noticed that something has changed - the most drastic change he’s seen since the fall, when Beelzebub’s skin had burnt to a crisp with permanent boils. 

Now, those burns have shrunken some, flies no loner crawling in and out and between them. Their hair is the same length as always, yet it’s been smoothed back some, and it’s not as dirty as Crowley is so used to seeing. 

They even have some rosey color to their cheeks, and Crowley mourns the loss of his eyesight rather than believe that Beelzebub has actually changed. 

His eyesight scolds him in the form of a less-deep frown from Beelzebub as they look at him. “Crowley? What are you doing down here?”

“None of your business,” he snaps, then promptly remembers the reason he came down in the first place was because he was trying to see if it was Beelzebub’s business. “Nevermind. Just - uh - you seen Aziraphale lately?”

They shrug and frown. “No. No idea why I would’ve.”

“Ok - but - ugh.” He swears and snaps his fingers, realizing something. “Can you get me Hastur and Gabriel? I’m going to scoop their bloody intestines out their asshole-“

“As much as I’d love to see that happen,” drawls Beelzebub, tone as bored as the placid expression on their face. “They haven’t been out of captivity in ages. Doing, you know, community service work.”

“Captivity?”

“Well, obviously. They betrayed direct orders, before Gabriel fell and after. So they get punishment like any other demon.”

“Oh?” He raises an eyebrow, and kicks another bottle aimlessly, just because he can. “What is it then? Torture, endless fire?” 

Beelzebub shakes their head and smiles. They actually smile, not a ruthless smile of an evil fallen angel, but the smile of sincerity. Crowley questions his eyes again, and they’re rewarded with a tone in his ears that matches the smile.

“No, actually, we’ve begun a bit les ruthless torture tactics.  _ Therapy.  _ You know, I never was impressed by torture.” They flap a hand out. “It was always so… garrish. Endless, annoying. Nothing changed.”

“Well, Yeah,” he muses. “But… But wasn’t torture supposed to be like, your thing? That and flies and whatnot?”

They shrug. “Being a demon was meant to be yours, Crowley, but here you are.”

“Point taken.” 

His phone buzzes and his hand goes stabbing into his pocket, nearly ripping the seams in an effort to see who it is. To his disappointment, it’s just his alarm, telling him that another half our has passed.

Still staring at the phone, watching the seconds slide away from him, he continues. “Well - I’ve got to go. See ya, Beelze.”

They don’t comment back as he walks out the door, managing to yank his eyes from the clock enough to find the annoying low doorknob. That’s one of his targets checked off - but he has more to go. 

—-

Something important to note about his targets now, is that they include a Seraphim. The Seraphim, according to the Bible, ran around God’s throne and screeched holy, covered in wings.

That’s incredibly inaccurate, as is much of the Bible.

In fact, the Seraphim only really wander about Heaven and her tea and biscuits occasionally. No one really pays them any mind, unless, of course, they’re half demon. 

Nowadays the only singing they do, apparently, is a mix of choir singing and beat-boxing matches in the back of angelic community centers. Even Metatron, the most annoying by far, had once facilitated the creation of the universe’s first perfect beat-boxing record, which consisted only of angelic melodies and occasional heavy breathing.

Satanic Seraphim are different than angelic ones, of course, but they’re still of about the same power level.

The first one, the one that Crowley has scratched off his list of targets, was Beelzebub. The Lord Of Flies. The Prince Of Hell. Lucifer’s right hand… person. They had fallen and their doves had fallen too, burnt into blackened little fly larvae that eventually flourished inside their burnt face, transforming into flies that they lovingly watched over as a parent might watch over their child. 

Then, there is Lucifer. Morningstar, King Of Hell, God’s former favorite. He was the most powerful of all Seraphim to ever exist, and his power only grew when he’d fallen, his body burning away till he was forced to create a new one and wait till humanity was created and he could shape a new vessel. He’s got no business stealing Aziraphale, so Crowley doesn’t dare disturb him over it. 

Yet. 

The final Seraphim - the one that manages to be the strangest, despite the Lord Of Flies and king of hell as the contenders, is Asmodeus. Demon Of Lust and Demon Of Anger. The Bitter Tempter. He’d started as the most beautiful of all angels - or so he’d told everyone. Eventually, he had been found guilty of being too vain, too self obsessed and selfish. He’d agreed and fallen, then gone on to wreck marriages and generally just make people miserable.

—-

He maneuvers through the strange and uncrowned hallways with ease, briskly pushing past demons that are slow to move out of his way. A few snarls and cursed can’t hurt him.

Asmodeus runs a very specific branch within the circles of hell, and it’s one Crowley has always despised. There’s a stark change as the area changes, but the new branch he enters is the same as he has always remembered it. Black concrete gives way to white, and windows and doors give way to blank slates.

New forms of demons lie in wait for him inside, and he’s not particularly excited to see them. 

Succubi and Incubi alike stare at his body with hungry eyes, exposing him even though his clothes stay firmly attached to him and he walks faster every moment. It doesn’t do much to help, and he sees licked lips and blown kisses thrown towards him. 

The area is significantly more disgusting than the other branches, and it has been since conception - even before the other branches began their remodeling. It isn’t horrible because it isn’t clean, in fact, it’s got an eerily clean and white sheen to the whole place. The part that is bad to Crowley is the stench of lust, of sex, and of false desire.

He’s always been a mediocre demon, and the sexual parts of being an occult beings had always disgusted him the most.

Sweat and every other fluid known to demonkind is splattered against the walls, but massive slugs come through cracks in the walls and devour it all greedily, leaving the white shining as bright as floodlights.

One succubus walks in front of him with a purr, completely human if you disregarded their massive wings shuddering behind them. They chuckle at him sinuously, tapping their full and cherry red lips and raising an expectant eyebrow at him. “Well, sweet cheeks.” They titter with gentle laughter, looking him up and down slowly - obviously. “We haven’t seen you down here for a while, _Anthony.”_

“You’ve never seen me here other than that one time I sent a report to Balar,” he retorts. “Fuck off.” 

They growl as he shoves them, but he walks away, sliding closer to the walls to avoid anymore confrontation. 

Desks begin to make way for couches stinking of everything, or beds with covers thrown off and pillows torn to feathers and fabric. Demons of all branches lounge on them, feeding each other grapes and hissing with laughter with their succubus and incubus companions. 

Eyes upon eyes press against him, and he quickens his pace. This place was one of his least favorite parts of hell since the beginning, and the people looking at him like he’s their piece of prey to watch doesn’t help much either. 

Every single one of the demons attached to eyes focusing in on him are hideous when he thinks about it. 

It’s not hard for him to admit that out of any being he could choose, human, demon, angel - he chooses Aziraphale without hesitation. The beings residing within hell’s halls aren’t even close to a match. 

Fewer doors pass his vision as he continues his walking, more and more of them giving way to open doorways and beds or seating randomly scattered, mold hastily cleaned away from moth eaten bedsheets and flattened pillows.

Finally, he meets his destination.

Asmodeous’s office doesn’t even have a plaque - it’s just a piece of cardboard stabbed into the door with a condom stretched over the knifeblade, reading “lust.” 

Seems they’ve downgraded - for last time Crowley passed this door, it still at least said “Demon Of Lust.” He can’t remember whether the stained door ever actually had a real plaque. 

The knocker is sticky with something unidentifiable, just as everything else in this wing of hell usually is when it goes uncleaned for more than a few minutes, so he doesn’t even check it. His foot slams into the door with a quick upward kick, and it goes flying inwards. 

He’s in a completely white concrete room - there’s not a speck of dirt or anything. It seems to be magically lit, as the entire room is blindingly bright, but the focal point is obvious. 

The single object in the room - a huge bed, its headboard a carved sculpture of who he assumes is Asmodeus and some lesser demon of his posing as his prey as they “wrestle,” hands and mouths and bodies pressed together.

The room is empty of all life. Not a single plant, not a companion, not even a photo on the wall or a rug to compliment the torturous white. It’s empty of everything and anything - including Asmodeus. 

His phone buzzes again, and he yanks it out with a desperate gasp.

It’s only his alarm. It’s been 14 hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was so fun to write????? I don’t know why, but hinting at an asexual Crowley is fun. Also, part of this is lowkey angst and that’s always cool.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit shorter than usual, sorry. I’ve just felt demotivated recently, and I’ve been going through some crap. Updates may be a bit more sporadic from here on out.

Outside of the room is a desk, nothing too out of the ordinary. It’s inconspicuous and something you’d see in your own home, or perhaps, in an IKEA. It’s the only real desk for the entire ward, along with the only flat wooden chair, and the only basic low-level Demon without a succubi or incubbi’s powers working there. He remains there permenantly now, probably promised sex and leeway with higher up Demons in exchange.

“Ello’, Crowley,” he says in a strange and foreign Australian accent, eyes not wavering from the edition of “Hellish Times” He holds in his hands. Hell may be ridiculously out of touch, but so were Newspapers, Crowley supposes. “What can I do for you?”

“Where’s Asmodeus?”

“Huh?” 

“Where’s Asmodeus?” He demands, face twisting into a frightfully angry mask. He’s had enough of anyone doing anything today. He slams a hand down onto the desk, punctuating the end of his sentence and the end of his temper both. 

Negotiating information from Demons was like trying to negotiate a corpse to come back to life, so the outcome you need is rarely what you’re given. 

“Oh. You could’ve just led with that,” they respond, kicking their rainboot clad feet up into the table. “He’s out.”

“Out  _ where?” _

“Out.” He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

—-

You may want to imagine right now that Crowley is keeping a cool head - just as Aziraphale is imagining. You hope that he’s staying calm, preserving his rage for whoever else in the universe deserves it. 

But the truth it that Crowley’s head isn’t near level, and his anger can  _ multitask. _

—-

His fists inexplicably find themselves knotted in the demon’s sweater, lifting him up higher and higher as he gasps and his chair clatters to the floor, empty.

“Where is he!?” He shouts, dragging the syllables as he plans to drag this Demons corpse of he doesn’t talk.

“I - I -“

He shakes them, but the rattled noises they make that might have once satisfied him now only have him even more angry. How dare they act as if they’re the victim now, with the circumstances what they are, with Aziraphale still missing and his aura nowhere to be found. 

“ _ Answer me!” _

“He - I don’t know!” He flinches away as Crowley’s glasses clatter to the floor, revealing snake eyes with pupils slotted thin as paper. “He just said he was going to stop this stupid reform! T - take care of some business!” He whimpers, and the cowardice and fear in his aura disgusts Crowley further.

When Crowley finally releases him, he goes smashing through the chair, wood shattering and splintering forward till it hits the wall of the other side of the hall. As one piece makes its path it brushes Crowley’s foot and hurdles to a stop, so he sneers, kicking it into the Demon’s face. 

“Pick it up,” he snarls.

He does, crawling to the other wall and scooping the pieces up, sliding them into the jaw of a slug-like creature nearby. “W - will that be all, Sir - Erm - Mr. Crowley?” He says, but Crowley has already started walking away. 

—-

White.

Aziraphale isn’t unfamiliar with the color. He associates it with Heaven - especially this white.

White can be a calming presence. It can be lamps gently exuding light, it can be snow freckling pothole-ridden roads, it can be the glint in Crowley’s eyes when he’s about to do something rather bastardly.

But this white is a heavenly light. Bright, sharp, biting, cold, there are all sorts of words and all sorts of synonyms to describe the unforgiving brightness that heaven fills itself up with. 

This white is the white of an empty room, not a single speck of dust or a light source or any object in the room. All color has been sucked away - the only pieces of it left are his dirt smeared clothes and skin, paling with anxiety.

Time is a long lost friend - he hasn’t had a watch or a clock near him in what is definitely hours. When he’d started counting the minutes, it had already been hours. All he knows is he’s been gone for more than 10 hours - and he hasn’t seen a single person. He doesn’t even know who took him. 

—-

Crowley usually has all the time in the world to do what he wants.

It’s a perk of being completely immortal - he can take as much time as he wants on many different things. Sure, he experiences the same time crunches as humans when he gets job assignments, but that’s in the past.

He’s gotten used to being patient and slow.

Today though - he knows he’s running out of time. Time is a fickle thing that is easy to despise or to adore, and today he happens to be clinging to each clap of a second passed as if it’s his lifeline.

For Aziraphale, Crowley hurrying very well may be his lifeline.

His feet follow a line familiar to him and very few other demons, yet he knows the path like he knows be smile lines of Azirpahales face. But that isn’t the right comparison, as Aziraphale’s smiles are gentle sunlight and this path is worry and regret and fear. 

At least, the direction he’s going in isn’t. It only manages to be terrifying when he leaves the elevator his feet are walking to, and goes to report back to hell.

Now, he steps into a familiar elevator, a strange, human one with elevator music you’d hear in a mall and lights that blind as it chugs upwards noisily. 

At this point - at the moment he’s stepped out of the office and walked up to the pathetic demon stationed outside - he’d known exactly where Aziraphale had been taken, and who’d done it.

Getting him back was another manner entirely, and it was going to take some elbow grease.


	6. Chapter 6

There’s something gasping for breath, right underneath Crowley’s skin. It writhes and wriggles like the snake form he keeps sealed within him, and it’s struggling against his own desire to not kill anyone yet.

Some might call it anger, some might call it worry, some might call it pure, heart-stabbing fear, but Crowley would probably describe it as all of that and a bit of pepper.

The elevator he rode in on jerks to a stop and he steps outside.

Immediately behind him, the elevator disappears. It is for one-way trips only, not that Crowley intends to ever return to where the car slowly drops to whenever someone crawls out. The scene outside of the cramped box is not very different from the one upstairs he’d left behind, but he pays it no mind and walks outside. 

The sky is dark and stormy, with clouds amassing above his head and rain beginning to plunk down onto the sidewalk. People pass him without noticing, their heads to phones of shoved into coat collars and umbrellas. His Bentley is still parked outside.

For the first time in years, Crowley walks right past it.

Rain starts falling harder, and the wind whips his long hair around as if Mother Nature herself is displeased. He just continues walking, till he’s in the middle of the street. It’s nearly empty, except for a few cars driving past every couple of minutes. Too rainy, he supposes, which is perfect for him. The Bentley is too slow, too inefficient for this task as much as he loathes to admit it. 

His wings come flying out in a blaze of silver light, concealed from humans nosy gazes with a quick snap of his fingers. He flexes them for a moment.

Is it worth it - he wonders - to fly?

Him and flying hasn’t matched since his fall. Before he fall, Crowley had adored soaring through the sky, hand in hand with other angels whose names he couldn’t remember and whose faces had faded like his memories, as if he was looking through an old and moldy tv screen. 

Now, and ever since his fall, he couldn’t fly. 

He’d tried so hard to take flight on so many occasions, but his wings would start to tremble as hard as his body, and collapsing to the ground after less than a minute in the sky was all he could do, panting and lying there as memories of falling blew at his brain like bullets into mushy flesh. Logically, he knew there wasn’t any way to fall again, but the sensation of it was enough to send him into a drunken spiral.

He’d stopped attempting it after a while, and whenever Aziraphale asked to fly with him, he’d politely - or drunkenly decline.

But the Bentley is slow for what he needs, and his wings carry him swiftly, and even if he has to ignore his shaking all the way through it, he will fly to his destination. 

For Aziraphale. 

So he goes.

His wings blow air down into the faces of humans tottering by, and he goes flying up into the atmosphere with eyes shut and rain soaking through his clothes, wings untouched. He twists in midair as the city shrinks below him, and his hands dig into his arms so hard they nearly rip the fabric of his suit. 

Breathing labored, he floats there, eyes wide as the view beneath him contracts and expands rapidly in his vision.

Crowley falls.

His gut and heart going flying out of his mouth, his feet flying down - down - down ever farther, and Crowley can hear his own panicked screams in his ears, even if now he’s completely silent. He’s burning, his wings are shredding to black ash and smoke and sulfur fills his lungs as he _chokes_ \- 

But this time he means to fall.

The thought of that - the impossible  _ want  _ to fall - the  _ choice he is making -  _ it keeps him afloat as he tumbled downwards, catching a breeze. He forces himself to breath and he steadies himself against the current of wind. 

It blows him to the side and he grins shakily, flying along in it, letting it take him wherever it pleases. 

—-

Aziraphale can’t see the blood, but he knows it’s there.

There’s nothing in the room within him, but he could feel the blade - it was impossible not to, when it dug itself into his shoulder and twisted. 

Aziraphale can’t hear his screams, but he knows they’re there. 

—-

Crowley’s smile slopes off his face a moment after it appeared. Now isn’t really the time for smiling, not with such dire situations. It’s been about 15 hours by now, and he’s wasted some of that precious time on petty bullshit. 

Dutifully he flies onwards, flying farther and farther from the bookshop and his flat, and eventually - farther and farther away from anything at all. He roams through the countryside now, watching as Adam’s aura recedes, it’s twisting colors pulling away like the pages of a book as he flips faster and faster.

On the horizon sits another page, dark black and red, no a single piece of human or angelic identity rising from it. It writhed around like a snake - but not like Crowley’s kind. This is the sort of snake you might find in a children’s book, the type to be tattooed on a wizard villains arm or something. He’d read Harry Potter once, and knew well enough about how often snakes were demonized.

He supposes he deserves that, but not  _ all  _ snakes. It seems a bit petty, really.

The pieces of it broil as he flies closer, and he knows that in the middle of it all, Aziraphale awaits. As storm clouds gather closer and closer and soak through him even more e flies above them, skimming them and diving back down only to find what lies in the center of the mass.

After a while of searching - he manages to find it. 

A massive black warehouse, quite cliche, really. Like a brick on concrete, not a plant lives nearby, and the ones that manage to breach the poisoned soil are withered and brown. 

The beast inside is one he can not beat, but for Aziraphale’s sake, he’s going to try. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so sorry I have been gone for so long. I kind of fell out of the fandom for a bit, then started another fic, and a lot of stress has come down on me in my irl life. I’m trying to get chapters out, and I will not abandon this story. 
> 
> I hate to give you guys such a short chapter, but it’s what I have right now. I hope it’s still enjoyable ❤️

Crowley’s feet land as a grateful pair, slamming into the ground right before he clumsily stumbles forward, slightly nauseous. He might have gotten rid of some of his apprehensions, but you don’t forget your own  _ Fall  _ in a day. 

The building seems even more foreboding than Heaven’s gates. Crowley doesn’t use that comparison lightly - he does have quite a bit of trauma connected to Heaven’s opening. Either way - the massive black doors of the plane-hangar-ish warehouse and the aura that swirls about it isn’t a pleasant one. Something feels incredibly wrong. Anyone could sense it, even the most daft of humans, as most humans were quite daft - could see it as plain as paper. 

Angels can sense love. They can sense happiness. All things good filter into their aura-seeking powers.

Demons, on the other hand, find fear. Hatred. Anger. Disgust and negativity swirl within their eyes as they search for everything and anything to corrupt.

Crowley was a mix of both - but he only saw negativity writhe around here. 

Nothing guards the doors. Not a lock, not an angel or a demon to be found. 

He enters with a press of a hand and a small miracle to swing the doors forward. Inside he is greeted with silence and black, not a light in sight or a sound to pounce upon his senses. It does seem similar to Heaven’s frigid atmosphere, and as the temperature drops inside and the doors slam shut behind him, he keeps his comparisons coming. 

Contrary to belief, some parts of hell are frigid. Usually, it’s just in places where people are being tortured, or in cells and such. Some places, like Beelzebub’s man department, are warm. They’re on the brink of hell, bordered by hell-flame and ancient beasts such as hell hounds running amuck. There’s one place where even if the temperature is mostly normal, the atmosphere is as cold as black ice stretched across streets and making cars skid off road. The person who runs that department is the single most cold person in hell - and the last person Crowley can compare this place to. 

“Well, hello again, Anthony.”

The voice comes out of darkness, and Crowley comes face to face with them.

“You don’t need to be like  _ that,  _ Asmodeus,” he says to the demon standing in front of him, light above Asmodeus’s head casting eerie shadows onto his sunken face. He takes the form of an older man - a businessman, maybe, the type that gets too close to his younger interns and stares at muscular man for just a bit too long. 

He really just looks gross. If Crowley is comparing people to things, he could compare Asmodeus to an angry toad at the side of a creek. 

It’s a fitting face for his job - and the cleanliness he prefers is reflected on his absolutely pristine pinstripe suit. Nothing about him screams: “sex appeal,” yet to anyone he desires, his figure will transform to their ideal partner. 

“No need for kindness when you’ve already done enough,” Crowley continues, impatient and angry. “Where the heaven, hell and earth is the angel?”

“Oh, attached still, I see.” Asmodeus sighs at Crowley’s answering quirked eyebrow. “I’d assumed that by now you’d gotten used to not having him around, seeing as he’s been gone for a while.”

“I know us demons are thickheaded, but Christ in heaven and Satan on land, what the  _ fuck?” _

“Oh, but you aren’t a demon anymore, are you?” Asmodeus walks forward, a cane suddenly in his hands tapping against the ground like a blind man, if he was blind to anything other than common sense. “You’re something interesting.”

“I’ll interesting your life out of your ass,” Crowley says, leaning back and shrugging, arms splayed out as if he’s presenting a reasonable offer. 

“I really don’t think that will be necessary.” The demonic Seraphim smiles - one that almost holds pity, but a smoking smirk hints at the edges of his wrinkles. It promises something Crowley knows he won’t enjoy - and the anxiety making his useless heart beat faster pumps within him even more. Crowley hadn’t experimented with his powers - he’d preferred to lounge around and do some spiteful, spitefully kind, and spitefully strange things with Aziraphale. Asmodeus should be at about his power level - or at the same, if not attacked with holy water or heavenly power, both of which Crowley had neither.

He stays frozen, even when Asmodeus’s creepy hands land on his shoulders, cane gone, and he tries to convince himself his reaction is only out of self preservation - not some form of magic. Not from Asmodeus, himself, or anyone else. 

“Now, “dear boy.”” Rage bubbles inside him at the casual use of Aziraphale’s nickname, but he conceals it behind indifference and sunglasses. “You wouldn’t want your little lover getting hurt, would you?”

It sounds like some sort of cartoon villain, but that has always been Asmodeus’s style.

And it  _ works. _

“Eh- What?” 

“If you cooperate, the angel will remain safe and relatively healthy. You have my word as a Seraphim. I swear on our holy lord Satan in hell, blah blah blah.” He sighs at the saying, drawing a hand away to wave it about in annoyance. That is a vow he can not break - if Crowley agrees, no harm will come to Aziraphale. “You know the drill. Now, Crowley, are you willing to cooperate.”

There’s a number of ways Crowley could cooperate with Asmodeus.

One:

He could deck him in his wrinkled, disgusting, and all too pathetic face, then retrieve Aziraphale and leave. This is the most optimistic idea, and it circles around in Crowley's daydreams. Oh, how he longs to give Asmodeus a few more wrinkles and some new bruises. 

Two: 

He could  _ not  _ do that, because that very well might get Aziraphale and himself killed. He cared little for his own corporation, but it would likely stress Aziraphale out if Crowley was obliterated, and Crowley obviously couldn’t allow Aziraphale to die. 

Three: 

Three was the same thing as two, but put in less words. 

_ Surrender. _

Asmodeus’s wrinkled and wizened hand is held out in front of him, and Crowley takes it and shakes.


	8. Chapter 8

Aziraphale never quite understood the creation of limes. 

Yes, they added a good amount of flavor to some of his favorite meals, and yes, they were nice when clipped to the side of a martini. But, their bitterness left something sharp on his tongue, and he’d always loved the softness of sugar and spice. Crowley liked to compare him to donuts - and in turn, Aziraphale compared him to oranges. A safe citrus, sweet, tangy, sugary and sometimes a bit of unnecessary bite. 

Now, he believes he can relate to limes quite a bit more. 

Something sour mingles with the pain in his shoulder and all over - bruised, battered, by nerves broken. A bitter exhaustion leaves him toiling to breathe, something he shouldn’t be struggling with at all. As an angel, lungs aren’t really an issue for him. Something is very, very wrong. 

The bitterness inside of him warps to fear, though - when Crowley steps into the room he’s been in for such a long time. The cold, silent atmosphere was enough that Aziraphale had started to acquire a constant shake, which grows threefold when Crowley arrives. 

He doesn’t even seem to notice Aziraphale - his footsteps, his breathing, the strange click of his tongue as he speaks to Asmodeus, they are all silent. Aziraphale knows enough of his lover’s quirks to have them memorized, but the eerie quiet makes him feel even more alone.

Tauntingly, Asmodeus turns and winks to him. Aziraphale holds up a particular finger in retaliation.

“Now, Crowley.” The voices grow louder. “I may be grasping at straws here, but I’d say that you care for you Angel very much, correct?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he mutters, and Aziraphale feels a pang within his heart at the voice. How he wishes right now to be held in Crowley’s arms, to be safe, and happy, and not stuck with wounds that have begun to burn and blacken. He’s in denial of the symptoms, but the wound has a very hellish taste to it. 

Asmodeus clicks his tongue, then his fingers, and Crowley finally makes eye contact with Aziraphale. Incredulous anger floods his face, which flushes brightly as he spins around to face Asmodeus. Behind it, Aziraphale can see a bright, wicked terror. 

“You sssaid you wouldn’t hurt him!” He roars, a few scales popping into his skin out of reflex. Crowley still looks gorgeous as ever, his anger a brilliant bonfire, even as Aziraphale’s vision continues to fog. He is so, so tired. As his back hits the wall, his brain agrees with him. Some sleep would be nice. 

—-

“I said I wouldn’t hurt him. I didn’t say I hadn’t hurt him already.”

He snaps his head from fantasies of holy water leaving less than the bones of the demon before him, and responds with a snarl and bared teeth that sharpen. “Do you really want to do this bullshit?” 

He gestures to Aziraphale, and his hand wavers. The angel looks awful - flushed skin, a gaping wound in his shoulder and a bruise mottling on his cheek. Something warm pulsates against his visible gash, and Crowley finds his knees wanting to buckle when he realizes that hellfire pulses through the area. 

Still, he can’t let tears fall. Asmodeus is a hard, quick witted son of a bitch who will exploit his every mood. Even so - Aziraphale disappears, and Crowley finds it harder to not immediately kill the Seraphim Of lust. “We had a  _ deal!” _

“Which I am still honoring,” Asmodeus responds, irritatingly reasonable. Aziraphale disappears again, and Crowley’s heart shudders. “He was harmed before your deal, and not permanently harmed either way.” He struts over to the far wall, where a soft glow emanates. Crowley, still confused by the indication that hellfire is in fact  _ not  _ permanent, follows behind him. Asmodeus faces the wall and sighs, an aroused look on his face as the white washes over him. “I have a thing you need to do for me if you want him back. It will also help him, if you must keep him alive when you get him.”

“Oh?” Crowley snarls, raising an eyebrow and then looking back to where Aziraphale was. “What is it?”

“Due to your recent development of powers - we don’t really know who you are. What you are.” He casually waves a wrinkled hand. “You are you, but who are you? You’ve got unimaginable power, and you’ve begun to spur a new age of change.” He whirls back around with a look of satiated lust, that twists as quickly as his steps to neutrality again. “One that I simply  _ can not  _ allow to continue. So, I have a small task for you.”

“Ngk. Get on with it then.”

Asmodeus levers him with a judging look. Crowley thinks it’s rather odd he thinks he has the right to judge him, but he stays silent nonetheless. 

“I want you to retrieve something for me. You might die - think of this as an ... experiment. A test, to see how truly far your limits might go.” 

Crowley hopes he’s wrong about what Asmodeus is asking from him - because he has a fairly bad idea of what it’s going to be.

“I want you to find the garden.” 

—- 

Crowley hadn’t expected to go back to hell after so much time getting out of it the same day. Well - it’s technically the next day - he’s been counting the hours - but still.

Anger, adrenaline, terror, fear, guilt, sorrow. They rip through him tumultuousy as he walks the long halls of hell, turning corners after corner and hoping to find what he’s looking for. 

It’s been there since the day hell was formed, a little hole in the wall. Not a single soulful or soulless being knew it’s whereabouts, besides Crowley. After all, he was the only being to ever make it inside the garden. Him and Aziraphale were the only two things that ever went inside, other than God. She’d placed everything inside for her newest creations, while all the angels in heaven had worked to build its components for her. 

Aziraphale had been the only angel that had dared to walk within her space - and she hadn’t seemed to mind. 

There’s a little hole in the wall, being plaster, behind fleshy, pulsating wall and fire that burns brighter than hellfire. A little hole that Crowley had only dove through once - mere feet behind his falling place. A little hole in a wall, which is now even more painfully hard to find. Damn hell and it’s habit of redecorating lazily. They just covered things up, never replacing them. 

It’s covered up now, but Crowley can never forget. He will never forget the searing heat, the screams spraying blood, the flames licking up and down his bruised and naked body. Reborn from fire, which he voluntarily walked through to find The Garden above after mere days out of the sulfurous lake that had claimed him as its lover. 

“And for what?” He used to ask himself - on nights after fights with Aziraphale or years they didn’t see each other. Why had he bothered to try, why had he bothered to stay and mingle above? 

Now, he would never voluntarily stay another place other than earth, unless Aziraphale followed. 

The familiar corridor, that he had avoided in fear of being recognized by whatever guards the place, comes into view. Identical to the rest of hell, if a bit cleaner. Completely empty - not a broken light, a desk, a demon or a dead thing in sight. It stinks of fear, and piss. He presses into the thick atmosphere, and as if a bubble pops, he finds what he requires. 

A door, abnormally small, sits at the edge of the hall. Asymmetrical, one side warped with age and the other tilting to the left. The naked eye could never find it - even if Crowley showed someone, they would see an empty hall. But the door had been there since Crowley’s fall, since before doors had come into existence. 

_ And Asmodeus knew Crowley knew where it was. _

That was a dangerous amount of information, and Crowley was grateful Asmodeus lacked the one thing that could get him into the door if he did find some way to see it. 

_ The key. _

A long, slender black skeleton key. Crowley had named keys himself, for the one he pulls out now from his pockets is the first to have ever existed. No matter how often he lost it, it always returned. 

Some things were beyond his understanding, but he knew that it was something beyond even God’s realm.

(She has tried to destroy it several times. It scared her, knowing she hadn’t created something, yet it still existed.)

  
  
  


(It was  _ terrifying.) _

  
  
  
  


It has a few ridges, thin as anything, that click into place as he slides it into the door. He takes a deep sigh, and the circular end of the key rubs against his fingers as it sinks farther inside the wood. 

The door unlocks, and hesitant fingers curl around a tiny knob. He knows what he will find inside, but that doesn’t stop the ebb and flow of anxiety in his gut as he remains unaware of what could’ve changed. 

Throwing caution to the wind, he yanks it open and crouches down. 

On his knees, he takes one last breath, and crawls inside. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I inserting references to the Neil Gaiman Extended Universe, including Coraline and entities outside of God?
> 
> Why, yes I am. Thank you so much for noticing.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is one that I’m really kind of liking, but also very worried about. If you could give me feedback, it would be much appreciated!!

He finds himself inside a tunnel - one that stretches on for eternity. It drips with the wet, flaccid feeling of a tongue, or someone’s flesh as it sloughs off of their corpse. It pulses, growing ever so slightly, then shrinking back down. The skin drips like chewed bubblegum, and exists in a shade only slightly more disturbing. It is an empty spot in his world - in God’s world. He locks it the moment he gets inside - for letting anything get into hell would be catastrophic. It clicks shut and he pockets the key. 

He can feel neither demonic and heavenly interests - for this thing - he knows that God has never even  _ touched it.  _ It is the pathway to everything, to and from every dimension and place ever. Press a finger into something too hard and you might find yourself tumbling through the Void, the true one, one with a capital “V.” 

(He only knew that because of a very tall, pale and peculiar man with a drooping face, who said Death was his sister. Called himself the Sandman, and warned Crowley against trying to find out the hard way.)

He walks through it, casually strolling down it like a quiet, tree shaded block. If one acts interested with the place, they might find themselves becoming it. He doesn’t let his eyes settle on anything for too long - for it might watch back. 

One step, another.

Across and further he steps, ignoring the feeling of his body sinking further into it. Vomit and bile crawls inside him, and he tries to pretend he can’t hear the whispers and crawling of things behind him. The ghosts of a trillion, ancient things sit here. Crowley would rather they kept on slumbering. 

Finally, he finds the hole he had passed through once, long ago. Sure, there were other ways into The Garden from here. But - God was the only one who knew of them. And he knew with absolute certainty She  _ hated  _ this one. It’s only a hole, sucked slightly in, puckered and grotesque. It feels alive and slick, as he presses a finger to it, but he won’t back away from it. 

Flesh pulsates around his arm, and for a single, sickening and awful moment, he thinks that he’d gone in through the wrong place. Something screams, roars at him as he’s sucked inside - then -

  
  
  


Blackness.

  
  
  
  


He wakes up in The Garden, face up and panting. Leftover terror still strikes him, but he sits up, hurrying to ground himself within the caress of grass against his palms and a searing sun above his head. He can smell fruit, and life, and the aftertaste of sticky afternoons spent admiring a lovely angel that sat at the edge of the garden. 

When he stands, he’s greeted with The Garden exactly as how he’d left it, and he feels a sudden urge to sleep. 

Wait -

No.

That’s not right.

It’s gone completely silent. There isn’t the call of any birds, or the sound of water running over peaceful zones, or other beasts chattering and roaming around. Adam and Eve’s absences are a sore thumb in The Garden of Eden. 

(Now that he thinks about it, maybe he didn’t technically ruin anything for them here, seeing as God had wanted him to. But blast and all to God’s wishes, She’s absolutely insane, and Crowley basks in his free will, thank you very much. In fact, if he continues along this line of thought - maybe there was another entrance to The Garden down in Hell, one that  _ She  _ had made, and hadn’t just been there.)

Best not to wonder. 

He starts to walk, creeping forward as if his next step will set off a landline, blowing him and his chances of saving Aziraphale to hell- to heaven- to everything and everywhere. To earth. 

_ Aziraphale.  _ Crowley’s mind races with the possibilities of what Asmodeus is doing to him, and then races a bit more at the thought of assaulting Asmodeus. Mostly, he’s trying to hold back a wave of overwhelming panic - he doesn’t have the time to let fear keep him. He keeps it parked firmly in the sidelines of his mind, where he keeps repressed memories and shitty feelings. 

He’d stopped pushing his thoughts and memories of the occultists and their tricks into that corner of his head, actually. Turns out hell and heaven had employed a couple of  _ therapists.  _ Witches, vampires, people with an affinity towards the divine and the occult. He’d gone to one - an older woman named Karla, a little old witch. Him and Aziraphale saw her separately every once in a while, and while both of them came out a bit angrier or anxious than usual, it helped them in the long run.

_ Snap. _

Crowley whips around to meet….

_ Something. Someone. Somebody, everybody, nothing, contradictions, paradoxes, home, emptiness. Faceless, dark and probably not someone meant to be here.  _

_ Snap.  _

His head is twisted back around against his will, and several trees turn their leaves backwards, as if time had just reversed. Left shaking and even more nervous, Crowley masks it all well, trudging onwards without making any other noise. Maybe it was a figment of his imagination. Maybe he hadn’t seen anything at all - he could just be going crazy.

(He’s seen the thing before. It lurked behind trees in Garden, watchful, a guard.)

_ Snap. _

This time, when he whirls around, he sees the tree. It looks just as open and beautiful as always, as if it had only just been made and hadn’t been sitting here for thousands of years. It’s an unfinished symphony - a single empty stem still lies there, prone in the air. Broken, snapped. A rotten and dried apple core lies on the ground, the only thing remotely changed at all.

Taking a deep breath, his fingers curl around the core. Nothing happens, so he pockets it. He doesn’t quite know why he wants it ... but he does happen to know where Adam and Eve are buried. Something tells him they’d like some closure. Burning a particular apple might help with that. 

_ (Adam and Eve suffer as ghosts. Unfinished business, in the form of one single fruit, now lies in Crowley’s pocket. They breathe a collective sigh of relief.) _

Once that beginning is finished, he moves on to the tree before him, shielding him from the sun enough that he doesn’t need to squint anymore. 

There’s a circle around it, painted in little mushrooms and flowers. The type that if you trespassed upon, the fae would find you in.

He steps over it, and goes undone.

Sent back to his original state - his hair falls out of his updo and settles against his shoulders, which are now clad in the silky grey robes of an angel or a demon. 

The Garden doesn’t seem to know what to do with him, as most people don’t, so getting a grey shade of clothes instead of just being destroyed out of it’s annoying stubbornness seems like a plus. 

Scales erupt on his cheeks, and little fangs extrude the slightest bit from his mouth. His fingernails sharpen, and he’s careful not to pierce the apple he curls them around. 

His wings fly out behind him, and as of gripped by an invisible force, stay there. With his hand still clutching an apple, he is rendered frozen, except for little droplets of sweat starting to trickle down his cheeks. 

He can feel the spikes in his wings, and the cut of his feathers pulled out so, so disgustingly. Holy water and pain course inside him-

_ “Quiet your thoughts, please.”  _ The voice comes from within his own lungs, and everything but it melts away.  _ “You intend to take one of the apples, correct?” _

“Who - What - What the  _ Earth?” _

_ “You should know by now that names are unimportant, ———-“ _

It knows his true name. That complicates things. 

_ “Now… an apple equals payment,”  _ it begins, as if it had been expecting and scripting this conversation for all time.  _ “Adam and Eve lost all that they had for one of them. Now…. you are aware of the consequences. What do you have to pay me?” _

“I… I…”

The hold on his wings becomes stronger, a tug, rather than a grip. Pain starts to flood his senses and he gasps weakly. 

“N- not my wings,” he gasps. “Don’t,” he practically cries, sharp and fearful. He hates to think of it - but the fear of his wings being taken is one of the most unimaginable. 

(That’s a lie, and he knows it. Seeing Aziraphale hurt is the most true terror he’s ever felt.)

It seems to accept this, and the grip turns more relaxed.  _ “Then what?”  _ It requests, not unkindly, only confused.  _ “What else do you have that could be of use?” _

“I - ngk - “

He can’t just leave here. He needs that apple more than he needs his own life, and while he’s willing to have his wings ripped off to save Aziraphale, he knows that rationally, he needs to think about this. Minutes pass, and he muses on it. The thing seems patient, and so he lets his mind sink deeper into his thoughts. 

The clothes off his back, his magic, his emotions. All seem like an insignificant gift compared to the wings of a seraphim to a beast that lives outside of God’s sacred rules. 

A revelation comes to him. He’s had his offering all along, sitting in the back pocket of his clothes. The thing seems to sense his need to move, and Crowley can finally shift again. He twists his back and maneuvers his hand, searching the edge of his robes for what he hopes he’ll find. Somehow, it remains intact even with the change of outfit. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out what he knows will be there. 

_ The key. _

The little black thing rests in his palm like a piece of lead, and the something watching him curls like a smile. 

_ “I have not seen this little thing since the beginnings of eternity,”  _ it muses, with something like nostalgia in its voice.  _ “This… this…. ———, this could buy you as many trees as you want. This entire Garden could be yours…. I’ve needed this key.” _

“Er - Then- then take it,” he stutters. “I don’t want The Garden. It’s all a bunch of nothing here. A facade.” He lifts his hand up, gesturing around. The something seems to agree. “Take the key, and The Garden, and I’ll take some apples.”

_ “Oh?”  _ It seems to chuckle.  _ “You’re truly a confusing one, aren’t you. Very well.”  _ The key flies from Crowley’s hand into the palm of the thing.

_ A mighty slash or air and fire. A rift between worlds. A blinding, ear shattering clap of thunder, and a thousand pair of hands to welcome the ancient and eldritch beast. The Garden Of Eve falls silent, and time resumes inside as God’s final guard leaves his post. Animals come crawling back, and it melts.  _

Crowley pulls a few apples from the tree, and makes his way to the exit. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More references to other Neil Gaiman books? Sign me up. In case you don’t know them:
> 
> 1\. Coraline door, and the tunnel to get to where the other mother is in Coraline.
> 
> 2\. If I’m not mistaken, John Constantine also travels through the same tunnel to get to something else, in a Neil Gaiman comic. (That might’ve been Preludes and Nocturns?)
> 
> 3\. The Sandman comics. Death is his sister in that one, if I remember correctly!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like the characters are a bit OOC right now... I’m sorry if they are. My writing had felt weird recently. I’m still trying my best.

The Garden Of Eden, unfortunately, capitalizes on the dualities of exits and entrances. While there are thousands of each, none of them seem to make themselves apparent when needed.

Through time ticking onwards, Crowley searches, fingers pressing deftly into the cracks of bricks that make up walls, or in between the hollows of trees, where, to his annoyance, little animals try to bite him from. When he finally finds an exit, he is surprised to find it to be the same place that Adam and Eve has escaped from all those years ago. To any untrained eye, it would’ve just been another crack in the wall. To Crowley, it bore the unmarked handiwork of Aziraphale’s hurried building. 

He pulls a brick from its place, and then another, then three or four more. Empty sand blows at the edge of his feet, heat of the dessert quickly following, billowing into The Garden, and so he strides through. His experiences with places such as this tell him he probably shouldn’t let anything in or out, so he picks up the bricks and fastens them carefully in place. 

Once he turns from his works, though, he doesn’t find himself anywhere near the original dessert. In fact - the sand is a bit larger than normal sand - and he can hear the crashing of waves against a shore in the distant background. He turns to its origin, and finds a large ocean, stretching across a massive expanse of land. 

Right across from his gaze is a man, dressed in a robe similar to his. Dark brown hands are crossed behind his back, and he turns to Crowley, a gentle smile lined with happy wrinkles appearing. He has a slightly crooked nose, and he’s too tall, and his hair is tangled around his shoulders. Wind buffets his clothes and he pats then back down, paying them barely any attention. 

A sudden realization hits Crowley, and he doesn’t know whether he is annoyed or relieved to see this particular figure.

“Hello again, Crowley,” says Jesus Christ, with a smile so genuine it makes Crowley’s nostalgia come back tenfold. “How have you been?”

“Oh, you know.” Crowley walks towards him, and the gates of The Garden disappear. He waves a hand, not actually knowing how he’s been feeling in the grand scheme of things. Right now he feels exhausted, scared, confused, and that type of nostalgia that makes you want to cry under a couple of blankets. “Why the bloody Earth does that exit lead  _ here?  _ And -“ he looks around, hopelessly dragging his arms back up. “Ngk. Where is here?”

“Here, is… well, it’s actually Heaven,” Jesus replies. He continues before Crowley has a chance to laugh. “Must be a surprise for you, you’ve only ever seen the angel side. Humans and other… similar things come here.” He waves to someone downshore, splashing through the water. “It’s almost exactly like earth, if earth was still within The Garden Of Eden. We coexist here.”

Crowley nods. “Yeah, well. Is it strange that I never was 100% sure she’d actually follow through on making a heaven? Thought she might just go around and put you in jars or something of the like. 

Jesus barks out a laugh, and Crowley can’t help but grin at the contagious noise. Despite the grim circumstances, friendly banter with the son of God makes things seem a little safer. 

Still, he has a job to do, and his robes weigh heavily with the feeling of apples inside their folds. His original form slithers inside him, awakening in this holy place. He doesn’t have much time. 

“Do you know the way out?”

Jesus points to the air directly to his left, where a phone seems to appear out of nothing. It floats, glowing just a bit, and rotating slightly. “You can call on that. Direct line to..” He points up. “To mom and all. Or, to anybody. I watched your stint with that demon, Hastur in the answering machine.” 

Crowley nods, wondering how everyone in Heaven adjusted to phones, and television and such. The whole situation seems rather absurd, but God is everything - so absurd is definitely on her plate. 

He just pulls his robes up a bit and marches over. Jesus watches him, smiling that blessed smile that no painter had ever managed to paint properly. 

(Granted - they’d never managed to paint him properly at all. Jesus wasn’t rich or white.)

He presses a few buttons, the worn numbers faint but visible enough he can type in the number he needs. It smells like pennies and flowery perfume, and it’s age is apparent. The gentle aura of love around it reminds him of Aziraphale - it’s soft, and something nostalgic sits inside these keys - something Crowley can’t comprehend, but he can try to, at the very least. Quickly, it begins to dial, perfectly soft and loud at the same time, as expected for a place like heaven. 

He’s almost reluctant to leave. If it wasn’t for the fact that  _ Aziraphale -  _ his reason, his love, his  _ angel - his -  _ was on earth and suffering, he might’ve dragged the white haired love of his eternity up here. Surely they could manage a small vacation here, at least. 

The ringing ends, and he’s shaken from his thoughts of security and the ethereal being he loved that was almost as foolish as Crowley was, if that was possible. On the other side, a child’s voice filters through.

“Hello?”

“Erm - Warlock. Hello. It’s-“

“Nanny?”

“Yes. It’s - yes,” says, and he can’t help the leak out fondness in his tone. He was even more similar to Warlock now that he was half angel and half demon - a balance just as his former ward was. It made his heart swell with pride to know that know his pseudo-son takes after him. That swell is quickly put out when he realizes he’s been neglecting him, and he swallows down his need to argue with himself that at least he was a better mother than God

God was neglectful. God had plans. God was…. 

Complicated. 

He tries to continue. “I-“

“Where have you been? Did you hear about the mass hallucinations? I think they’re bullshit.” Warlock pops his gum. “I think they really happened, and the adults are just covering it up. Dad says it isn’t the government this time, so.”

“Wonderful language,” Crowley praises with a smile. He can still have the same devilish happiness in watching Warlock’s vocabulary thrive, it doesn’t matter what color his wings were or whether he had a halo on his head or crushed under his ass. 

He takes a deep breath as he realizes how much more important this conversation is. Crowley doesn’t mind being Warlocks Nanny right now, but he needs to be  _ Crowley  _ now. His voice settles into its deeper pitch, and he groans. “Hmt - Warlock, I’m about to do something you’re - you’re  _ not  _ going to get an explanation for. Just be a human and pretend you don’t see it til later?”

He waits for an answer, impatiently tapping his foot and disturbing little whorls of wet and chunky sand. 

“Nanny?”

“Yes?”

“Why didn’t you come to my birthday party?”

Crowley shuts his eyes and rubs his brow, realizing that he really needs to come back and be more active in Warlock’s life. 

“I didn’t - that’s a -  _ shit,”  _ he curses, ignoring Warlock’s little snort. “How much money do you want?”

“We’ll negotiate when you do your weird shit you’re waiting to do. Whatever.”

He takes that as an invitation, and feels himself thrown through the phone. 

—-

Two minutes later, Warlock finds himself staring at an incredibly familiar figure. They’ve got his nanny’s face, height, most of her body, and everything else. 

_ But. _

This person looks more tired, yet somehow more alive. Their expression isn’t so tight, and they stand a bit taller. They’re tied up in silvery robes, which they clutch to themselves even as they sink with the weight of something vaguely circular wrapped inside them.  _ Apples,  _ he notes quickly. He may rot his brain cells with the TV, but Warlock was not a complete idiot. 

All Warlock had been doing was playing his Nintendo on his bed now - home alone - if you could count only the butler and a few other workers being around home alone. Now, it seemed as if he’d been shoved headfirst into one of his games.

_ “Nanny?”  _ Is all he manages to squeak out, ashamed at his squeaky voice. Nanny Astoreth and Brother Francis has now missed  _ two  _ of his birthday, and many new voice cracks and growth pains. “What the  _ fuck?” _

“Bloody-,” grumbles the new person, cutting off in frustration with hell and heaven on the top of their tongue. “No, not Nanny right now… I’m… erm… how do I-“

“What, are you a guy sometimes or something?”

The person stiffens, then cocks his head and shrugs. Taking that for a yes, Warlock slams his Nintendo down and faces his nanny-but-not straight in his eyes. They flicker in the light, a snakes eyes, warm, golden, inexplicably soft. 

Warlock realizes he’s never seen Nanny’s eyes.

“That’s  _ cool,”  _ he stresses fiercely, going for casual and shooting past it wildly. “What do I call you?”

“Ngk. Crowley.” He pauses. “Anthony? No. Crowley.” Crowley groans. “For hell and heavens sake, it’s about time me and Aziraphale explained something things.”

“Aziraphale?”

“Brother Francis,” he explains, dismissive, as if it was only natural. Warlock supposed it was to Crowley, even if it didn’t make any sense to him yet. “Who also happens to be in too much trouble for what’s sssensible for the angel. A stupid  _ sssstupid  _ angel.” 

“Mr. Crowley?” 

He turns back to Warlock after breaking out of murmurings about France and a church, as if he’d forgotten the boy was there. “Warlock,” Crowley grumbles, which he seems to do a lot more know that he’s not Warlock’s nanny. “I’ve got to go.”

“You’re dressed like an idiot. Follow me.”

—-

Five minutes later, Crowley stands one the backyard of the magnificent mansion, surrounded by memories and a particularly lush set of clothes. It’s not perfectly his style - Warlock’s father didn’t have good taste in anything - but he did what he could - pulling himself together with a black button down and slacks. His bare feet are grounded in the grass and he sighs, robes and apples tucked gently into a satchel Warlock has tossed at him. 

“Sorry Warlock,” he says softly, turning around. He boy is slightly taller, and his hair has grown out a bit. Fresh acne dots his cheeks, which are too pale for his own good. His eyes possess a determination Crowley hadn’t seen since Warlock had gotten his first laptop. 

He bends over, letting his knees crack until he’s level with the child. Crowley isn’t one to be loving or sentimental in this way, but he finds himself pressing a small kiss to the young boys forehead, letting himself slide into Nanny Astoreth for a moment. 

“What for?” Asks the boy in response, grabbing Crowley’s sleeve for a second, his expression hardening. Crowley won’t be able to leave without answering.

He stares at Warlock for a second, but Crowley’s half-glare only makes the boy frown harder. Supposing he won’t be able to worm his way out of this, he answers. 

“I don’t know when I’ll see you again.” He pauses. “But… just know that you should answer your phone, just in case someone interesting calls. And telemarketers.” 

Satisfied, Warlock releases his grip. They stare at each other for a moment later, til the same time that doesn’t wait for now man becomes impatient and starts its ticking again. 

Crowley’s wings fling out, all six flapping with wild abandon, dust and starlight drifting down into the grass, creating graceful piles of breathtaking life. Warlock stumbles backwards in surprise, but stares at him, captured by the shimmering feathers twisting in the light. 

Before Crowley’s former young ward can snap a picture or call his name, his wings twitch open, and he goes shooting off into the sky. 


	11. I can’t continue this fic.

Hi.

I want to start this off with an apology.

For a long time, I loved and obsessed over Good Omens. This fic and it’s predecessor was my favorite thing I’d written in a while. Now, Good Omens isn’t really something I’m interested in. This fic feels useless, unnecessary, boring. The first story was written when it was written, and I never should have continued it.

I am truly so, so sorry for this. I’m ending this story here. Someday, I’m probably going to delete it entirely. Thank you so much for the support you’ve all given me. 

**Author's Note:**

> Alrighty folks. Tell me how it was - do you like it so far? Drop me a kudo or comment if you’re feeling generous!


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